bench press not necessary

Everyone blabs about how the bench press is the god of chest exercises, but there are so many other ways to build an impressive chest.

What is your favorite?

I happen to prefer 2 exercises over bench press. Those that have been here a while may have heard me mention the first one, DEEP PUSHUPS, quite a few times.

The second is a press/fly hybrid exercise I created that’s performed on the cables. I call it
THE DOUBLE EYE PUNCH!

It is similar to using free weights in that there is no predetermined path, so your range of motion is completely unrestricted. This means that you use your stabilizer muscles just like you do with free weights. The difference is that you won’t kill yourself with cables. Although I bet some of us may find a way.

 

 

You stand with the cables at shoulder height, and if you can control the width like you can with the incredibly awesome Freemotion Cable machines, set it so that they are kind of wide, like 10 inches outside of your shoulders. Keep your elbows close to your body to prevent the very common shoulder strain or injuries.

Bring the cables forward by pushing just like you would with any of the chest press exercises, but at the same time, ADDUCT your arms, meaning; bring them in toward your center so they meet and greet each other. “Hello, left.” “Hello, right.”

Your thumbs should be pointed toward the floor as if your are double-punching someone in both of his eyes. Your arms will be almost fully extended at the elbow, with only a slight bend. You don’t need to lock them in place because there is no point to that unless you’re interested in fugging up your joints.

Now comes the beauty of my madness. Once they meet each other in front of you, and after the proper formalities have been exchanged, take a deep breath and then as you exhale, ROTATE THE BAD BOYS outward so that your thumbs end up on the outside, fingers up. REALLY CRUNCH THAT SHIT!

Again, exhale as you are crunching and be sure you are not lowering your arms. Keep them at face level. Remember, you’re punching someone on both of his eyes and it would be wrong if that person was smaller than you.

Hold it for 2 seconds as you exhale and keep them TOUCHING. Now, un-rotate as you return them to the start position while inhaling.

Keep these pretty heavy so that you fail at 6-8. This way, you can build a chest that will scare the children or turn the girls on, depending on where you like to walk around shirtless. Three to four sets should suffice.

Another circuit today. Mixed it up with Legs, Chest, and Back. Push/pull baby!

Deadlifts 3x
Pullups – Added assisted pullups after maxing out on regular ones 4x
Incline Bench on Hammer Machine 4x
Pushups 3x
Narrow Rows 3x, Wide rows 2x
Cable Xovers 3x

No cardio. Ran out of time and was way too hungry. Had a Grilled chicken caesar from Mc Donalds after my protein shake (25g protein) and an apple. 2.5 hours later, had edmame (cooked soy beans).

She’s raising her feet to make her deep push ups even harder and more effective. Joy.

I’ve been doing a quick, fantastic circuit of different bodypart exercises including the fantastic deep push ups along with some explosive cardio. No rest until you finish #4, then rest for one minute.
Use a countdown timer.

 

 

 

3 sets of:

  1. Barbell Squats – As I’ve preached before, if you don’t have a squat rack use a small enough weight that you can easily press over your head when you’re done with squats.
  2. Deep Chair Push ups – 2 child chairs around 16″ off the ground + a 16″ step for my feets. Let your body go WAY down past your hands. These super deep push ups build your pecs like a MOFO!
  3. Pullups – ’til failure
  4. Long Jumps – Stand with both feet together, squat down slightly, swing the arms forward and jump as long as you can, not necessarily as high as you can. As soon as you land with both feet, squat way down to absorb the impact, then spring up like a crazed monkey swinging your hands, and long-jump again. 12 jumps, baby! 

TIP: as you land, lean forward a lot since your momentum is taking you forward anyway. If you don’t, you might feel like you’re going to fall backward when your feet hit the ground. Leaning forward on the landing will allow you to continue jumping many times in a row. These absolutely killed me.

LONG JUMPS!

Be sure to squat all the way down before you spring back up and swing those arms so you get distance AND height, ok?

DEEP PUSH UPS!

^ These are fantastic! But you don’t have to raise yourself that high though; just as long as your chest goes really deep without making contact with the floor.

They’re also called “Atlas Pushups”, named after Mr. Charles Atlas. I actually learned these from his program too. He taught to do these morning and night. I don’t remember how many sets, but you’ll definitely see major pec improvement with these! They round-out your pecs and especially build up the sides and middle giving your chest that split in the middle. Plus, if you position the chairs so that your hands are farther out in front of you, it’ll give you the angled lines going from your shoulders up toward your center chest. That’s because you’d be doing the incline equivalent which builds up your upper pecs. They also widen up your chest by building up the outer sides of your pecs.

And she’s raising her feet higher than her hands which is GREAT. By raising her feet, she’s ensuring that she’s doing the equivalent of straight bench press instead of keeping her feet and hands at the same height, which would resemble floor pushups. The angle of the arms to the body when doing floor pushups actually give you DECLINE pushups which mostly work out your bottom pecs.

That is why you should raise your feet so that your body is parallel to the floor, and perpindicular to your arms. This way, you’ll mostly work out your MID PECS, which in my opinion, is better than working out your lower pecs. If this is hard to understand or you think I’m full of shit, picture her feet being raised even more and pay attention to the angle of her arms in relation to her body. See how her arms are rotating at the shoulders and the elbows are moving closer to her head.

Now, mentally turn her upside down. See how it resembles an INCLINE press?

Incline Bench Press


INCLINE BENCH PRESS!

Either way, it’s the deepness of the pushup that really makes this a damn good exercise. I’d even go so far as to say…

deep push ups are better than bench press!

Me after many sets of deep push ups!

Oh my goodness. Now I’ve done it! I’ve disrespected the beloved “KING OF CHEST EXERCISES”.

WHY such a crazy idea??

Because with bench press, you’ll avoid maxing out for fear of dropping that shit on your neck! So, you’ll stop early, leaving a few reps in the tank. With deep pushups, or even regular pushups, you’ll go ’til you can’t do any more, ’til failure and then still do a couple more half way pushups just to be sure you maxed out.

Do 3 sets of deep push ups—always ’til failure—and look in the mirror when you’re done, preferably with overhead or side lighting. Pleasantly surprised? Slight chuckle? You’re welcome.

NOW KEEP DOING THEM, BIFF! _____**_____

Don’t lean back like her!

Once again, I saw the “bigger” guys doing Seated Rows today, using their entire upper body weight to pull the weight. And guess what, they might be big, but their muscles are not really showing.

Perhaps they’re working out their lower back as well by leaning back. But if you really want to develop your upper back muscles, you’re going to have to ISOLATE.

Sit straight up with your back straight, and concentrate on “crunching” your upper back muscles at the peak of the row and hold for a second. And don’t let your arms get pulled forward too much at the shoulders. This can lead to straining the fragile rotator cuff muscles by them getting pulled or stretched, giving you pain in the rear delts.

Back straight, elbows go past your ribs, crunch the back muscles like her.

Same goes for Incline Bench Press. You know the weight is too heavy when you find yourself lifting your butt or your upper body off the seat. This will make your body less inclined, and near parallel to the floor. You’ll turn your Incline Bench Press into a Flat Bench Press which works your mid level pecs. If you really want to work on your upper pecs, KEEP YOUR BODY PRESSED TO THE BENCH!

Today was Chest Day.

4X incline bench press
3x incline Hammer
3X crossovers-super with bicep curls

3x Quadruple Supersets=
• barbell curls
• seated dumbbell hammer curls
• Tricep pushdowns
• Standing tricep bar extensions

Spin bike= 15 minutes HIIT

That Quadruple Superset was bomb! I had a huge pump going in my upper arms. My biceps looked like they’d explode! And I was sweating like crazy. I had virtually no rest in between the the 3 sets of four exercises. I say “virtually” because I did have to catch my breath for like 5 seconds near the end. If you’re going to do this, use a heavy weight for the first exercise and a lighter weight for the second. Same for the Tricep exercises; heavy + lighter. I was using 70# barbell + 20# dumbbells and 60# Tricep pushdown followed by 50# extensions.

PEACE!

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